Paying the Price
by WeepingAngelXIII
Summary: For twelve years they've all been waiting for their Birth by Sleep...  TerraXAqua pairing.
1. Aqua

**Aqua**

I've had to live all those years, knowing I'd failed. Here I don't seem to age, I just continue on in this Realm of Darkness, remembering. I've no idea how long I've been here, but it seems like forever. I made a promise though, and that means I've got to go back some day.

Master Xehanort didn't win. But we lost more than he did. Even though I hope, I don't know if Ven ever will wake up. He's safe though. He's hidden in a Room of Awakening, and there no one will be able to find him. At least I know he's safe, but Terra…

Seeing Terra like that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to face. In fact I would rather face all the Unversed I have ever fought than see him like that again. For half a second I thought I could see him in there. He was frightened, and hated himself for allowing himself to be so easily taken in. His memory was slipping away and he was panicking, but I knew what had happened. He wasn't just Terra anymore. There was something else inside him: something evil. Maybe if he was just Terra I could have coped with that. I tried to liberate him but that I couldn't even manage. There was something other Terra I knew in him at the end though. It was almost as though he had tried to fight against his own actions, and something was left in there, deep inside, that stopped him from destroying me. That was why I couldn't let him fall into the darkness. He was still Terra, no matter what.

I couldn't do as he asked. When I took Ven back to the Land of Departure and turned it into my Castle of Oblivion I heard his voice somehow, wanting me to destroy him. I didn't know what he meant at the time and I ran blindly after him. I was afraid. We had been separated at the Keyblade Graveyard and something in my heart was hurting as though something terrible had happened, but I am not one to give up. I needed to find him. I wasn't going to leave him anywhere. I loved him. That's why it hurt so much. I loved him, and even though I'll never give up hope that I'll see him again someday, thinking of what happened to him has been eating away at me all this time. I couldn't do it, even when I saw what he had become I couldn't destroy him. I believed I could get him back, but I wasn't strong enough for that, even if I did beat him…

He still fell.

I dived after him too. I had to save him. I wasn't leaving him behind this time. I would make sure he would be safe. The Darkness felt compressing. He was the only thing I could see and at no consideration to my own safety I vowed to get him out of there. The initial plan was to get both of us out, but that wasn't going to happen, I noticed.

But if only one of us was going to go, then there was no question about it.

It had to be Terra.

I gave him my keyblade and sent it out of the darkness with him. I hope that he lives well until I can find him again. I may not have been able to do what he asked: destroy him (although I don't think I could have given up on him either way. I worry about him, even if I try to be an optimist). But I still could give him a second chance.

I love you, Terra.

I've been here a long time now: too long, but I'm never going to give up. The Boy with the Keyblade, he can fix these pieces and maybe some day I'll see Terra again, as he should be (not as he was the last time I saw him).

And Ven will wake up.

"Sora…"


	2. Ventus

**Ventus**

My body sleeps still. It's still in that castle far away. I can remember when he went there, and fought those people in the black coats, Organisation XIII, and I knew that my body was close.

I won the battle against Vanitas, and at a price. He had told me that if the χ-blade was destroyed, my heart and his would also die. I don't care if he came from me or not, he would never understand. Terra and Aqua were counting on me. I was not going to let that χ-blade be used, and Vanitas needed to be destroyed. He seemed to think that self-preservation was more to me than my friends. That concept seemed weird and wrong to him. He just doesn't get it at all.

My friends are my power and I am theirs.

Even in my battle with him, Vanitas didn't think I could do it. He thought I was weak. He always had. But I could prove him wrong. Even at the cost of my heart I was going to stop all of this. I wasn't worth the others. I didn't care what happened to me. They had to be saved.

I'd been worried about Terra since all of this started and Vanitas came to me and said he would be a different person. I was afraid (of course I was) and I went to look for him. It was a shame really that no matter what I did both he and Aqua just continued to treat me like a child. I felt annoyed by that I supposed. I'd trained just as hard as either of them. The fate of the worlds came then to rest on me and I had to sort it out. I destroyed Vanitas but I broke my own heart as well. What was left merged with that boy who'd healed me years before, and Aqua took my body and hid it where nobody could ever find it.

I think that's why Organisation XIII was there in the first place. They were looking for me. Someone had known that I was there. Something about their leader, when I saw him through the boy, bothered me. He looked familiar, as did his Heartless. Somehow, in some strange way, he reminded me of Terra.

I know that that's the weirdest thing I've come up with ever, but it's true. Something about the way he looked, reminded me of Terra, but I suppose what I was more reminded of when he spoke, was Master Xehanort.

It was even his name.

Xehanort.

That was before he lost his heart anyway. It worried me really. He might have been Xehanort. I didn't know. I hadn't seen him or Terra since the Keyblade Graveyard. I've never really known what happened then. I was all a bit too preoccupied with fighting off Vanitas and getting turned into a living popsicle (that was really unbelievably cold).

I miss them. I haven't seen Terra or Aqua for the best part of twelve years now, but I am still lingering and waiting. Part of me came out in that kid as he grew up though. When he sacrificed his heart to save the one he loved, the Nobody born of that separation looked just like me.

Roxas.

"I wish I'd got to meet him."

We both do there.

Anyway, twelve years have gone since my heart and body were broken. My body still sleeps in Castle Oblivion and my heart still dwells within his.

Me, Roxas, Xion… It's getting rather crowded in here now.

The thing is though, really I'm asleep, but sometimes I feel a presence of my friends with me, and that I'm sitting on the mountain summit at the Land of departure again. We'd all look to the sky and watch the stars, and hope that our lives will be fixed.

The pieces of us are scattered, but I know him and I have faith in him. He will not let us down.

"Sora…"


	3. Terra

**Terra**

My life changed so much in twelve seconds, let alone twelve years. One second I was me, and then I was someone completely different. I fought back though, part of my mind had settled into my armour, as resistance to the possession, and I tried in vain to regain my body. It had been unbelievably hard for me both before and after the moment I changed. I had fought hard against Master Xehanort, but yet no matter how hard I had tried, I had still failed to save Ven. The χ-blade was forged. There was nothing else I could do.

He stole my body, but my mind somehow had survived inside that armour. I fought him, but still I had failed. I defeated him, but could not separate his heart from my body. My body and my heart, still clinging to its shell was pulled into the lanes between and the lingering sediment that was my mind waited and vowed to help my friends, and for years it remained in the Graveyard, waiting.

My heart was weakened and temporarily it was Master Xehanort who had control. The body that had been mine had drifted through the Lanes to Radiant Garden, City of Light. My mind had done some good, though. Xehanort was confused and the battle had left him disorientated and confused. His heart had begun to lose the grip it had on his mind. Terra-Xehanort, was beginning to become independent, but he wasn't going to let that got without a fight. I'd sent Aqua a message (more of a prayer than anything) for her to put an end to this, to kill me. It was almost as if I knew where she was, and that Ventus would be OK. I led Aqua right to me, but I noticed when she looked at what I had become, she was not disgusted. She was sad, and angry with what Master Xehanort had done. She nevertheless drew her keyblade and demanded him to release me. He refused, and the battle started.

It was painful to watch that battle from behind my own eyes, and be able to do nothing. I saw the pain on Aqua's face, every time she struck the body with that keyblade. She was brave, and she never stopped believing that she could get me back. That's why she mattered so much to me.

Aqua.

I didn't see her again really after that battle.

She vanished and the independent mind of the New Xehanort began a new life in Radiant Garden. Master Xehanort and I battled constantly for control of the heart, but neither of us managed it. The New Xehanort created monsters (Heartless and Nobodies) and then eventually surrendered to the darkness itself. With his heart destroyed, both the hearts of myself and Master Xehanort were shattered and the pieces were scattered inside the two beings created.

We weren't divided equally though. A lot more of Master Xehanort was in the Heartless body. We found the one I had chosen though. Having grown up, that boy, Riku, submitted to the Darkness and helped the Heartless to grow stronger. If it hadn't been for that boy with the keyblade who destroyed it with light, the Heartless may have coated the worlds in those things. Part survived though, inside Riku, and no matter what happens it will remain there. I am still there. But so is aster Xehanort.

The Nobody though, was a different matter.

Xemnas.

Although it was Master Xehanort's obsession with the χ-blade that added the "X" to all members of my Organisation, mostly Xemnas was me, as the body had originally been mine. The only thing that concerned me was my lack of a heart. I wanted it back, but some of me had broken through the barriers of the "Xehanort" apprentice. I recognised Aqua's armour and brought it to my Room of Sleep. I realised where Aqua had put Ven, and sent members of my Organisation to her castle to find him. The Thirteenth, I noticed, also bore a very strong resemblance to Ven. I set out to search for them and find out more about my past (although some things came through not all did), but it was Aqua who I felt closest to. I used to talk to her armour and pretend it was her. No one else knew about it, or they would have thought I had lost my mind as well as my heart. But sometimes I even felt as if she really answered, and memories of someone I had loved (whatever that felt like) came back to me.

Aqua.

But he came back that boy, and one by one struck down every member of the Organisation, leaving just me standing. Even I was defeated in the end. The interesting thing was though, that as I faded into my own Nothingness, dying, for a second I did not see that boy anymore. I saw Ventus, looking at me with sorrowful eyes. I never got a chance to really look though.

I was lost to Oblivion.

My scattered remnants find themselves in the Realms I find myself in. Somewhere out there, I know Aqua and Ven are there too. We're all waiting I know.

Everyone is waiting for their Birth by Sleep.

It's been twelve years, and that boy with the keyblade is still a saviour of worlds. Maybe he could be the one to fix me: fix us all?

Aqua

Ventus

Terra

"Sora…"


End file.
